4 - Wednesday, July 2,

WELL OVER a decade ago, a friend of mine made quite a

1986 - North Shore News

Bob Hunter

® strictly personal ©

fuss about coming out of the closet.

It was the height of Gay Pride.
Homosexuals everywhere, back in
the mid-70s, were deciding to make
it public. They were tired of
pretending that they weren’t queer
when they were.

It came as no surprise to my
friend's friends, of course, that he
was gay, since we had mostly fig-
ured out his, ah, peculiar prefer-
ences, a long time before.

The general attitude was, so
what? He was a good man who
had done a few good things in life,
with moments of greatness, much
like the rest of us. We even kind of
admired hin for having the balls
to admit he was gay, you know?

But times have changed.

Nowadays, the same friend is
more or less back in the closet. He
never guite shed his protective coi-
oring a5 an ordinary straight male,
so his business hasn‘t gone totally
down the drain.

js there a backlash against
homosexuals? 1 guess so, although
I'm not sure there was ever much
of a frontiash, to begin with.

How much have times changed?

J do know that most sensible
middle-class pays are keeping a
distinctly lower profile today than
10 years ayo, despite all the
chetort. about pride.

With the AIDS scare, hyped up
as it is, in full bloom, and tough
guys like Doug (‘Cobra’) Collins
stomping around, if | was gay, I'd
adopt a fairly danin low profile
myself,

Although ... 1 read a claim
recently that something appalling
like two-thirds of the regular adult
American public has one variation
of herpes of another. Does chat
mean hetero-Yanks should be
rounded up, too?

When it comes to personal sex-
ual preferences, [| am a pure

of stereotyped male-female crela-
tions. | mean it.

Relieve it or aot, Po can even
understand people not wanting to
have children. And certainiy one
of the best ways, barring celibacy
or surgery, is to nor have stereo:
typed omele-femate relations.
Right?

There are stereotyped gays, for
sure. And there are general habits

of AEE 7] of speech and body language

liberal, There. | adimit it. Anything
less than total freedont to make
one’s own sexual choice is a step
toward -- or back to ~ a police
state.

T may not want to get it on with
you, but I'll defend to the death
(well, almost) your right co get it
on with whatever consenting adult
you like, regardless of their plumb-
ing.

The truth about gay people is
that no one description fits them
all except their common rejection
of normal, as in whe norm, rela-
ionships based on heterosexual
bedroom habits or emotional
needs.

} happen to think that
heterosexual monogamy is where
i’s at. (And if there’s a typo in
this one FH scream!) But all that
does ic tell you where I'm at, or
where I claim to be.

Yet 1 can easily see how men and
women alike could decide they
wanted to avoid the entanglements

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tg

which many gays, espectally of the
extroverted variety. seem to share.
But having noted this, again, so
what? .

Have you never observed an ex
troverted straight) hunk? Males
who are heavily into machismo
speak oaoorather amusing body
langtiage too,

And even though | am forever a
sucker for it, the body language
used by most good-lookin'’ dames
is positively criminal!

} harbor bizarre fantasies of

having at least one functioning
frontal lobe, you see. But the truth
is that a tight pair of jeans of a
swell-shaped female stern catches
my libido as fast as it catches my
eye. There. Another confession.

This is primitive stuff we're talk-
ing about, one’s sexual impulses.

My private opinion is that most
gay people 1 have ever met, or
whom I figured, at least, were gay,
strongly tended to be neurotic. No
gelling away from it.

But since most straight people
carry a fair amount of neuroses
around in ir life baggage,
what's the big deal?

Let him or her (or, for that mat-
ter, iQ} who is without hang-ups
throw the first tantrum,

I think freedom of speech and
freedom of choice in sex are sides
of the same coin. To be in favor of
one, but opposed to the other, is
nowhere.

Cobra, some of my best friends
are twisted. Leave 'em alone, eh?

GRAND ( WEIN

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